You currently have javascript disabled. Several functions may not work. Please re-enable javascript to access full functionality.

Welcome to Ultimate Subaru Message Board, my lurker friend!

Welcome to Ultimate Subaru Message Board, an unparalleled Subaru community full of the greatest Subaru gurus and modders on the planet! We offer technical information and discussion about all things Subaru, the best and most popular all wheel drive vehicles ever created.

We offer all this information for free to everyone, even lurkers like you! All we ask in return is that you sign up and give back some of what you get out - without our awesome registered users none of this would be possible! Plus, you get way more great stuff as a member! Lurk to lose, participate to WIN*!

Say hello and join the conversation

Subscribe to topics and forums to get automatic updates

Get your own profile and make new friends

Classifieds with all sorts of Subaru goodies

Photo hosting in our gallery

Meet other cool people with cool cars

Seriously, what are you waiting for? Make your life more fulfilling and join today! You and your Subaru won't regret it, we guarantee** it.

* The joy of participation and being generally awesome constitutes winning** Not an actual guarantee, but seriously, you probably won't regret it!

OK, well I got a PM so I will throw a thread out there. I work for a company that has and uses a CNC for producing aircraft parts. Due to the rarity of peugot wheels everyone is looking for alternative means of getting larger wheels on their gen 1 and gen 2 subarus. If there is enough of a demand I can work with my boss to produce and sell these wheel adaptors. They would be made of 6061T6 aluminum and precision machined of course.

To get the ball rolling I would need 4 or 5 people committed right off the bat to make it happen. After that we would probably just keep them in stock. Figure it will cost about $150 for a set and come with all hardware necessary.

Send me a PM if you are 100% in wanting a set

what I need to know also, is what bolt pattern would you guys want to convert to? 4x100mm? 5x?? 6x?? (personally I think 5 x 100 would be the most usefull)

that might be true but those aren't in demand here. maybe somewhere else. 5x100 is the main demand item. i've yet to see anyone (although i'm sure it's been done!) trying to convert to 114.3. between usmb and the xt6 site, there's a bunch of guys looking for 5x100 lug sets as i type. kingbobdole, xtsix, 85wrx, Psyko, 2K4STi....okay those guys are from the xt6 site, and i know there's more over here (though some are the same guys). either way, 5x100 demand is high. not too mention someone i know paid $700 for a set! i've sold quite a few, they are not hard to sell.

there are SVX and impreza platforms with 114.3 patterns, so i'm wondering if that would be a rather easy conversion to do here anyway. the 114.3 impreza's are rather new but they're only going to become easier and easier to get and might be reasonable from Subaru...two things not true of the XT6 5x100 stuff.

and the picture posted above is the way to do it, it's how i would do it, and a company has already done it. but they are in australia and it's huge dollars for the kit. crossbred performance.

yes taking the 4x140mm pieces and having a setup to convert those into 4x100, 5x100 and so on would be the way to do it. Hardest part about the 5-lug conversion is the need of rear XT6 hubs so if you could get some 4x140mm rear hubs and convert those to the 5x100, you'd be set.

I reckon it would be too hard to make a standard hub into a 5x100 because the disc has 4x100 bolt pattern and your cutting it really close to miss the holes. 4x100 is ok because its between the disc holes.

The thing with the crossbred performance is you get better brakes as well. Some may not care about this, but if your doing your car up for performance, then you'll want better brakes. If you just want some shiny mags, then a re drilled hub or spacers is the way to go.

As for those who think spacers/adapters aren't cool, there are toyota guys out there with heavily modified rigs with 1.5" spacers on there wheels that have no problem. And I would think with 39x15.5" tires there would be a lot more stress then a Subaru would get. Yes, there are stories of these type of things failing, and they are real. But just ask yourself, did they mention what the adapter was made of? Alloy's aren't Alloy's.

The only problem i see with using adapters "on our cars" on top of the existing hub is the extra spacing of the wheels created by the adapters.
This might not be a problem if you can find the wheels you want in the correct offset,and depending on if you want to lower or keep your car at stock height.

Most shy away from adapters from the "rumors" of extra wear and tear on the wheel bearings

If you make a run of these adapters, do "we" want to have the widest options for our wheels on our oldskool soobies, or do "we" want wheels that can change back and forth between our oldskool soobies and our newskool soobies?

I say "we" because I am perfectly satisfied with my nappy old 13" steelies; my soob is a putt-putt machine not a performance car.

So, which would you rather have? Wheels straight off of an Impreza, or virtually any aftermarket design you can think of? One way grants more choice, and the other way grants more compatibility.

I reckon it would be too hard to make a standard hub into a 5x100 because the disc has 4x100 bolt pattern and your cutting it really close to miss the holes. 4x100 is ok because its between the disc holes.

The thing with the crossbred performance is you get better brakes as well. Some may not care about this, but if your doing your car up for performance, then you'll want better brakes. If you just want some shiny mags, then a re drilled hub or spacers is the way to go.

As for those who think spacers/adapters aren't cool, there are toyota guys out there with heavily modified rigs with 1.5" spacers on there wheels that have no problem. And I would think with 39x15.5" tires there would be a lot more stress then a Subaru would get. Yes, there are stories of these type of things failing, and they are real. But just ask yourself, did they mention what the adapter was made of? Alloy's aren't Alloy's.

The reason why I would go this route is so you can do the brake upgrades and such instead of keeping the stock 4x140mm brakes. I would weld up the original holes from the 4x140mm lug pattern, mill the hub flat except for the eccentric ring for the rotor and then drill new holes.

The reason why I would go this route is so you can do the brake upgrades and such instead of keeping the stock 4x140mm brakes. I would weld up the original holes from the 4x140mm lug pattern, mill the hub flat except for the eccentric ring for the rotor and then drill new holes.

No demand from me! I have redrilled hubs (4x114.3) and just got some SICK adapters (4x100). I'll have to see which one works better because those adapters are awefully thick and will require an offset of 40 or more to get close to the stock wheel offset with the seven inch wide rims I'm planning on running. :-\ I'll report back once I find a suitable set of wheels.

OK, well honestly it seems like 5x100 is in the lead. Dont give up hope for other sizes if the first run gets enough demand. Like I said tho, SEND BE A PM if you are willing to straight up buy a set or two if I was to machine a spacer/adaptor to go to a 5x100 bolt pattern.

5x100 is in demand on USMB and XT6, because that's what old-gen 5-lug subarus use. in fact, only exception to that is the SVX, '05+ STi, and B9 Tribeca. and since a 5-lug swap is generally considered a relatively bolt-on mod, it uses already in production subaru parts.......meaning 5x100. but if the already in production parts where easy to come by....we wouldn't be here. so that argument is rather moot.

now, if you're talking about redrilling hubs. 4-lug is a must. as mentioned, the rotor uses a 4-lug pattern, and trying to space a 5-lug pattern within that, would be very difficult (if not impossible) without drastically sacrificing hub strength.

another thing to think about with hub drilling, is the hub itself. subaru wheels are hub-centric. however, the center hole in a 5x100 wheel is substantially smaller than a 4x140 one. so some serious machining would be required to modify a 4x140 hub to allow a 5x100 subaru wheel to mate up to it, independent of bolt pattern.

then it comes to adapters/spacers. couple things to be said about that.

if you use a 1.5" (or something similar to that....would be required to clear the old lugs), unless you compensate with the offset of the wheels, you'll put lots of torque on the bearings that they weren't designed to take. it's virtually impossible to say exactly how much extra wear they'll show, but they'll fail sooner than they would otherwise, that much you can bet on.

yes, trucks can get away with it. they're suspension systems are designed to handle more weight. solid axles help a lot, but even rigs running IFS can use wheel spacers, as the bearings used in even the crappiest truck IFS system are substantially more beefy than our subarus' setups.

also, running spacers without correcting with offset in the front will effect steering, as the pivot point relative to the contact patch is changed. again, who can say what effect that'll be, but if it were a good one, subaru would have redesigned the knuckle/control arm to move the ball joint a couple inches inward.

AND, pushing the wheels out away from the car will complicate fender clearance.

short version: when picking the lug pattern, find one for which there's a wide selection of wheels of an offset that will put the contact patch back where it should be (read: a LOT of research). And there will be NO subaru wheel that will work with spacers. so thinking outside of the subaru box is a must!

Well, switching the front to five lug is very easy. XT6/Legacy/Impreza front knuckles and struts make it easy. But as S'ko said, the rears are the hard part.

But Nubchux is right, that a thick spacer will add stress and funky offset issues, IF it is 1.5" or more thick. But what about a .5-.75" spacer. Pop out the stock studs, and design the plate with the 4x140 studs pointing IN, and the 5x100 pattern pointing out. It would then bolt on with nuts on the back side of the hub through the original stud holes. If the plate could be kept thin, definately under and inch, I think the stress and offset issues would be minimal.

One could easily "convert" the fronts using EJ or XT6 struts and knuckles, then just an adapter for the rear.

I'd pay a couple hundred easy for those. Unless you want to machine whole new drums.

Agreed. If someone designed and made a concept for some CNC'ed AL hubs I would pay for that. I'd probably pay up to $500 for a set F/R that was similar to the crossbreed performance kit (his prices are insane).

Who still has drums? Its such a F'n easy mod I'm supprised there are still Subarus running around without them!